Thursday, January 21, 2010

Technical complexity hurts the user experience. Technical complexity makes it more difficult to change, optimize, enhance, and scale your design. In my experience, when the technical design gets too complex, only big changes are worth the effort--small changes are just not worth the amount of time it takes to make and QA the change. This leads to myriad small enhancements that get left by the wayside, and a UI that grows stale and stodgy.

So when your developer says "I can can implement your design, but I'll have to hack something together to make it work," you should hear, "This had better be a darned good design, because you may never get a chance to change it."

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About Me

I like making music and playing card games with my family, fixing up my house, eating ice cream, and reading anything I can get my hands on.
I've worked in the world of technology-enabled healthcare for over 25 years, mostly for Kaiser Permanente, where I have led user experience, product management, web analytics, and strategy for Kaiser's Web presence. My current work brings together healthcare reform, multiculturalism, and experience design.
The views in this blog are strictly mine and should not be attributed to Kaiser Permanente.